Nearly as many smart phone buyers now want an Android phone as want an iPhone.

Android has posted incredible growth since last year.

Google's OS also rivals the iPhone's iOS in satisfaction these days, as well. (Source: (All graphs in this article are from Changewave))

Android is winning consumers' hearts, has now pulled neck-and-neck with Apple

When the iPhone 4 went on sale people were wildly enthusiastic after hearing about the stunning new display, inclusion of video chat, and a host of other new features at Steve Jobs' keynote introduction of the device. As the phone launched with a slew of quality issues including antenna and proximity sensor problems and began to face superior hardware Android competitors, that enthusiasm has been waning.

According to a new study by ChangeWave, the number of smart phone buyers intending to buy an iPhone dropped from 50 percent in June to 38 percent in September. Meanwhile Google Android surged from 30 percent to 37 percent, pulling roughly into a tie with the Cupertino gadget maker.

The news is a huge victory for Android, which two years ago was virtually unknown, with only 1 percent of smart phone buyers in June 2008 saying they wanted an Android handset.

Google is also doing well in satisfaction. While Apple's fans have long been unquestioningly loyal, leading to sky-high satisfaction numbers even when the company's products have problems, Google is seeing increasing enthusiasm among its customers as well. Apple's smart phone OS ranked first with a 74 percent customer satisfaction rate, while Google's Android was close behind with a 65 percent satisfaction rate.

Both operating systems are far ahead of Palm OS/webOS (32 percent) and RIM OS (31 percent) (commonly found on BlackBerry handsets). And Windows Mobile showed a rock-bottom 24 percent satisfaction rate, showcasing how desperate the company needs its new Windows Phone 7 OS.

Overall the ChangeWave study shows no real major surprises. Rather, it's just one more measure that shows that Android is surging towards surpassing Apple (and competitors RIM and Symbian) as the most popular and best-selling smart phone in the world.

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One thing about these results that jumps out at anyone who has looked at the Palm Pre or Pixi is the low percentage compared to iOS or Android. There are three reasons for the numbers here.

First up, you have the people who have an original Palm Pre on Sprint. This was the first release of the Pre, and it had(and has) some quality issues with the construction. It has gotten a little better, but has not gotten a significant upgrade on Sprint.

The Verizon build quality is quite a bit better, and the AT&T build quality better yet. With the "Plus" versions on Verizon and AT&T, the RAM was doubled from 256MB to 512MB, which helps things a bit.

The second reason for the numbers is that there has been no refresh part. So while there are new Android phones that seem to come out weekly, the Palm phones have a stock speed of 500MHz, even though it can be overclocked to 1GHz fairly easily, with over a 95 percent success rate. From that perspective, those who would want to upgrade every year just have NO reason to with the lack of new devices. People who currently have a Palm Pre or Pre Plus want a phone with a bigger screen and a stock 1GHz or faster processor, plus larger battery, yet there is no new replacement.

And finally, there is the lack of hype to drive sales and make people feel like they are on a PLATFORM that is still alive and thriving. Even with the release of WebOS 1.4.5, all we get from HP are rumors about WebOS 2.0, with no word on when new devices will be released. This isn't how you keep people interested in a platform. If there is nothing to look forward to, people lose interest, and that is how many people are feeling about the WebOS platform right now.

"I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For [Paramount] to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks!" -- Movie Director Michael Bay